So unlike The Clocktower review where I gave them 2.5 forks for just terrible overcooking of a beautiful steak, I'm giving Kings County Imperial 2.5 forks for just being really overpriced hipster Chinese food. To me, Chinese food, even at it's best shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg and if it does, it should blow your fucking mind away. And sadly the food doesn't here. I guess I should have known better but it was worth a try since there are hardly any good non-scary-bars-in-window Chinese places around here.
The place is owned by the same people at Stone Park Cafe in Park Slope (an old brunch favorite when I used to live there). The menu here has a slight slant towards Sichuan food, so I was expecting it to be pretty hot and spicy but it really wasn't. In fact Aarti had to ask for more hot sauce for the food (not that she wouldn't have done that anyways). I will give them props for having a pretty great menu with lots of options - lots of veggies, noodles, fried rice, and stir fry options. We split the double garlic eggplant ($9), sauteed pea shoots ($14), cold sesame noodles ($9), egg fried rice ($12), and for myself I got the chicken dumplings ($10) to cover my meat craving. While the prices of these individual dishes aren't expensive, the portions were on the small side, especially when you pay the same prices in Chinatown and get x3 as much food.
Everything thing here was just ok, nothing awe-inspiring, nothing seriously cravable or worth giving a shout out too. I actually thought a lot of it was rather bland and they could have kicked it up several notches on the spice and flavor profiles. Most Asian dumplings are made with pork in them and now I totally get why - there's more fat and flavor. It just didn't taste the same to me with chicken in it - although I clearly could have just ordered the pork dumplings or pork shumai - my bad. The cold sesame noodles technically had chili oil in it, but it didn't really taste like it did - it tasted more like regular cold peanut noodles with no heat.
I may be a bit harsh on this place as the food wasn't terrible or inedible, but I just felt incredibly underwhelmed by everything. I'm probably also biased in the sense that I've had some pretty amazing and authentic Chinese food before in my life and I have very high expectations when it comes to Asian food so it's probably unfair to lay those expectations on a place like this in Williamsburg. On the plus side, it's a nice departure to the gross take out places in the neighborhood and if you're looking for something more upscale and can't be bothered to go into the city, this will do just fine. But I would say that if you're looking for truly authentic Chinese food that will leave you full for days, this isn't it. Total bill with tax, tip and wine: $100 for 2
Photo Credit: Yelp
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